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DESCRIPTION:Join us for the inaugural Leon Levy Foundation Lectures in Jewi
sh Material Culture. Andrea M. Berlin will deliver a series of three lectu
res entitled “Beyond the Temple: Jewish Households from the Maccabees to t
he Great Revolt against Rome.” Alex P. Jassen\, Karen B. Stern\, and Azzan
Yadin-Israel will each respond to one lecture and also offer a correspond
ing lunchtime talk the following day. Additional support provided by The D
avid Berg Foundation.On Tuesday\, October 17\, at 6pm Andrea M. Berlin wil
l deliver the second lecture entitled “Class\nDivides: Jewish Daily Life i
n the time of Herod the Great.' Karen B. Stern will offer a response.Beyon
d the Temple: Jewish Households from the Maccabees to the Great Revolt aga
inst Rome. When did Jews first begin using material goods to communicate a
religious identity? Why did such a practice arise\, and what were its soc
ial and political consequences? In these three lectures\, Berlin will coup
le archaeological remains with historical testimony to address these quest
ions. The story begins in the second century BCE\, with the rise of the Ha
smoneans\, a landed family from rural Judea who leveraged military success
and political connections to establish themselves as both religious and c
ivic leaders. The Jewish-Mediterranean state they created lasted just two
generations\, but by the time of its demise in the mid-first century BCE i
t had provided the context and impetus for the full integration of Judea i
nto Mediterranean political culture. This gave rise to an elite class beho
lden more to political than priestly interests and set up a clash between
two modes of Jewish self-understanding: one who took its cues from that ex
treme philo-romaios Herod\; and a second who saw themselves as fulfilling
a heroic Maccabean vision of a re-conquered Promised Land. In the nexus be
tween these modes\, archaeological remains reveal that there developed in
Judea and Galilee a new materially-inflected lifestyle in which people ado
pted specific goods and behaviors to reflect a connection to Jerusalem. Th
is was a commoner’s lifestyle\; it allowed non-elites to infuse their home
s and day-to-day lives with a Jewish sensibility. Over the course of the e
arly to mid-first century CE\, we can see how this lifestyle became implic
ated in the development of hardened social identities\, which in turn cont
ributed to zealotry and\, ultimately\, the Great Revolt against Rome.Class
Divides: Jewish Daily Life\nin the time of Herod the Great. Herod the Gre
at is deservedly\nrecognized for his stunning architectural creations. Les
s acknowledged but\nequally pivotal was the effect of his lifestyle and cu
ltural affectations on\nJewish society. Before Herod\, there is little evi
dence in Judea for an array of\nitems common in the classical Mediterranea
n\, including formal dining rooms\,\nfrescoed walls\, mosaic floors\, deco
rated table wares\, and even variously shaped\ncooking vessels for differe
nt recipes. After Herod\,\nwealthy Jews embraced classical culture. They e
ntertained in well appointed\ndining rooms\, prepared Roman recipes in Ita
lian-style pans\, served from\ndecorated dishes\, and dined on individual
place settings of slipped and painted\npottery. Such cosmopolitan displays
evoke the banquets of Greek and Roman\ncustom\, but their late appearance
in Judea – only after their adoption by Herod—suggests that it was the ki
ng himself\nwho set the tone. Local elites\, following his example\, proba
bly used these\nmeals as potent status events to reflect and augment their
own social\npositions. Such actions contributed to a growing class divide
that marked\nJewish life in the two generations leading up to the Great R
evolt.Professor Andrea M. Berlin is the James R. Wiseman\nChair in Classic
al Archaeology at Boston University. She has been excavating in\nthe easte
rn Mediterranean for over thirty years\, working on projects from Troy\nin
Turkey to Coptos in southern Egypt to Paestum\, in Italy. Her specialty i
s\nthe Near East from the time of Alexander the Great through the Roman er
a\, about\nwhich she has written four books and over fifty articles. She i
s especially\ninterested in studying the realities of daily life\, and in
exploring the\nintersection of politics and cultural change in antiquity.
She has been\nappointed as Leon Levy Foundation Professor of Jewish Materi
al Culture at Bard\nGraduate Center for the fall 2017 semester.Karen B. St
ern is Assistant Professor of History at Brooklyn College of the City Univ
ersity of New York. She is the author of Inscribing Devotion and Death: Ar
chaeological Evidence for Jewish Populations in North Africa (Brill\, 2008
) and of the forthcoming Writing on the Wall: Graffiti and the Forgotten J
ews of Antiquity (Princeton University Press). Her research considers the
material culture of Jewish populations throughout the Mediterranean world.
This event will be livestreamed. Please check back the day of the event fo
r a link to the video. To watch videos of past events please visit our You
Tube page.
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20171017T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20171017T193000
SUMMARY:Bard Graduate Center: Beyond the Temple: Jewish Households from the
Maccabees to the Great Revolt against Rome
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